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Saturday, November 5, 2011

Part 10

At first she thought it was a whale, for its size and for
the fins that stirred the water to either side. However, its fangs curved down
from stiff lips, serrating the outline of its mouth in a way no whale’s teeth
ever had. As it came closer, she saw the flicker of more fins and a long tail
that undulated through the water. This was no whale, nor fish, nor any creature
she had ever seen, in life or in death.
It was huge.

A memory stirred, terror and awe all at once. She had been
very small much smaller than she was now, and there had been a horse so tall it
had blocked out the sun as it galloped past. She had felt the wind on her face
and the tremor of its hoofbeats in the ground, and had cried with fear at the
size of it.

This monster was much larger than a horse.

For a moment she clung to the thought that it would not perceive
her. The living had not reacted to her when she had crossed overland, or she
could not remember if they had. Fish rarely seemed to see her, even when she
passed through their schools on her long descent. Perhaps this thing, too,
would ignore her and look elsewhere for the source of that thundering noise.

The pearly glow of its skin dashed that hope, moments before
it angled the bulk of its head and glided towards her, its one beady eye fixed
on her. This was no living creature; how could it be? It, too, was a ghost. A
ghost so old that it had never seen the earth she once walked. She should have
run- but no, it would only catch up to her, those huge fins churning behind her
as its fangs closed in on her tender body.

What happened to a wounded soul? She remembered the cheesy
flesh of the disintegrating lost, and felt sick. She shut her eyes, waiting for
the inevitable.

The inevitable did not come. She opened her eyes after a
moment to find the monster still before her, floating unmoving and watching her
with what could only be curiosity. Carefully, Vera backed away a few steps. The
creature didn’t seem concerned by her movement. She backed away a little
further, a yard or two. The leviathan followed her with a nonchalant flip of
its fins, coasting easily through the water and keeping pace. Vera stopped
backing up and gave it a careful look.

It was rather lovely, once she stopped fixating on its huge
teeth. There were a lot of those. But besides that, the creature was an expanse
of pebbly blue-green skin, decorated in speckles and stripes that must have
served as camouflage in warmer, greener waters. It was large enough that it could
have eaten that long-ago horse in a bite or two, but it didn’t seem hungry now.
Death had that effect.

The thing flicked a fin and slowly keeled over in the water,
rolling along until it came to rest, still floating, but upside down. It
considered her now with its other eye. She laughed. She realized that she had
not yet tried swimming. How silly, to spend so long at the bottom of the sea
and never consider leaving the ground. She pushed off, kicked a little, and found
that she could indeed swim. Quite quickly, in fact. She couldn't remember
having been much of a swimmer in life, but now she could cut through the water
as nimbly as a fish.

She hovered over the belly of the monster, and it rolled
onto its side to watch her. She swam a little higher, and as the murk began to
fill the distance between them, the creature followed after her.

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Sorry for the late post, guys! I had some serious brain problems in relation to time zones, and kinda forgot it was Friday for you. Eheh. See you next week!